Does The Heritage Foundation Want The U.S. To Be More Socialist?

January 14, 2011 12:35 pm ET —
Walid Zafar

Every year, the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal join forces and publish their Index of Economic Freedom. And every
year, the results of their index
give us an opportunity to illustrate just how morally, intellectually and
ideologically inconsistent the conservative movement truly is.

This year, the United States ranks ninth, ahead of Bahrain but, as the
publication scores it, behind Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada,
Ireland and Denmark. The top spots almost always go to Hong Kong and Singapore,
respectively.

So what's the problem?

First, Hong Kong and Singapore are city-states, and, according to The Economist, hybrid regimes — somewhere between a weak democracy and an authoritarian
regime.

Other than Hong Kong and Singapore, the other countries ahead of the
United States are all strong social democracies. In other words, they are the
very places that both the Heritage Foundation and the editors of the Wall Street Journal consider evil: nations
supposedly teetering on the cusp of socialism, where taxes are at near-exorbitant
rates. Worse, in all of these states, there is some form of socialized
medicine and, in some instances, mandated health insurance.

What gives? It's almost as if the Index
of Economic Freedom is an arbitrary exercise and not really about economic
freedom at all. Perhaps the most obvious illustration why this index is
wholly worthless is that Morocco, which — again, according to The Economist — is an authoritarian state, is ranked significantly higher on the index of economic
freedom than Brazil! This is tomfoolery at its best. Or perhaps its worst.